Nikolai Topor-Stanley of Western Sydney competes for the ball with Joel Allwright of Adelaide City on Tuesday night. Photo: Getty Images

A brilliant individual effort by 18-year-old Tom Love sealed the first boilover of the new knock-out competition.

After the teenager weaved his way through the defence of the A-League grand finalists, suggestions were raised the Wanderers had one eye on next week's Asian Champions League quarter-finals match against Guangzhou Evergrande.

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However, Topor-Stanley denied his club took a relaxed approach to the game at Adelaide's Marden Sports Complex.

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"It's the inaugural FFA Cup and we go out to win every game, we wanted to be champions first-up and that's what we set our sights on with every competition," Topor-Stanley said. "To stumble at the first hurdle, it isn't a great feeling."

The Wanderers were still in the early stages of their pre-season campaign, having played just a handful of warm-up games before their first competitive fixture, but Topor-Stanley refused to use lack of match fitness as an excuse for the result.

Their FFA Cup exit highlights the advantage state league clubs have over A-League opponents in terms of conditioning as they enter the first round of the cup in in the middle of their seasons.

Adelaide City showed their fitness with a high workrate.

Topor-Stanley, however, cites his team's domination of possession as proof the Wanderers were not outmatched physically.

"I don't want to use that as an excuse, all I can say is that we've been training really hard," Torpor-Stanley said

"We did not expect an easy game, we got a difficult match and that's cup football. It happens all over the world and we just need to move on.

"We were still building to peak fitness and we were never going to be match fit with a few games under our belt, but we are certainly working hard towards that ... I don't think there was a big difference in fitness levels."

Although the defeat is still raw, the Wanderers defender is turning his attention to his club's first-ever appearance in the Asian Champions League knock-out stages when it hosts the reigning champions of Asia.

Guangzhou Evergrande are coached by World Cup winner Marcelo Lippi and include former Italian internationals Alberto Gilardino and Alessandro Diamanti in their line-up.

Topor-Stanley hopes the defeat to Adelaide City will serve as a strong lesson just a week before the game at Parramatta Stadium on Wednesday.

"I have to leave that behind me and concentrate on positive energy and go into this game full steam ahead," the 29-year-old said.

"Certainly there's a lesson to be learnt there and I'm sure our manager will be quick to point that out and we'll work hard as we always do to correct that on the pitch.

"We take pride in having a winning mentality at the club. We want to win every single game that we play in, we're representing our club, our community and we want to do them proud."